Why are there no Black college football head coaches in the SEC?

College football desperately needed a breakthrough and His Hive was seen as one.

Sylvester Croom doesn't believe that much has changed for Black college football coaches in the Deep South.

Croom, who became the SEC's first black head football coach when he was hired by Mississippi State, said that nobody is asking for any favors. To be elevated to the kind of positions that they're going to get is what we're asking for.

Croom hasn't stopped trying to make sure more black coaches get head-coaching opportunities. He will be a member of the College Football Hall of Fame later this year. He knows what it's like to be a black man trying to climb the ladder of his profession.

Croom is familiar with his past. He doesn't need to be reminded that for the second year in a row, the SEC won't have a single Black head football coach. There are no minority head coaches in the SEC. There are three Black head coaches in the Big Ten and three in thePac-12. Dave Aranda is from Mexico.

It's very hard to understand. "I was the first in the SEC, and nobody really says anything about it." There's a large percentage of players and assistant coaches who are black. There are no black head coaches in the SEC anymore.

The SEC is without a Black head football coach for the second year in a row, and commissioner Greg Sankey says it is troubling. Mike Slive said that Croom's hiring as the SEC's first black head football coach was the most significant event that happened under his leadership as the league's commissioner.

"We've had success in adding diversity in other sports as well as some of our athletic directors' positions and at the president and chancellor level but not in the head football coach position recently." We have policies in place to ensure there are diverse pools, but we don't and I don't make the hiring decisions. They're made on the campus.

We should not be in this situation.

It's rare in college football for a black head coach to get a second chance.

Before Croom arrived at Mississippi State, the program had won eight games in three years and was facing stiff NCAA penalties. He won the Liberty Bowl and the SEC Coach of the Year in 2007. He was fired after he fell to 4-7. So after that?

"I didn't get any interviews, maybe one at a junior college," said Croom, who left Starkville to become an assistant coach in the National Football League. Black coaches face that. Sometimes they don't get a second chance. It's one-and-done, and I want guys to make sure they have the right support, both from the administration and the resources, because that might be their only chance.

It seemed like that might be the case for Locksley for a while. He was an offensive coach at Maryland for four seasons after he was fired from New Mexico. After Randy Edsall was fired, Locksley received a call from Lane Kiffin about an analyst job.

Locksley was able to take a step back because he had a year left on his contract. I had been a head coach for 15 years and it allowed me to take a break and organize my thoughts. The access I was given to Nick's program helped me get the Maryland job.

Black coaches need to be put in decision-making roles on offense.

In the next three seasons, no of the SEC's primary offensive playcallers is Black. When searching for a head coach, athletic directors look for someone with an offensive background and someone who knows how to call plays.

If we're going to change things, there needs to be more guys on the offense.

Croom has a ready answer for anyone who wants to rationalize the small number of Black head coaches by saying the pool of qualified Black assistants is limited.

Croom had a long list of them. On the offensive side of the football, I place the responsibility on coaches that are not moving black guys up. If it's that old idea of Black coaches not being smart enough, you see it more on the defense. I think some of that is in the background.

The head coach of the new XFL franchise is a 14-year veteran of the National Football League. Buckley spent the last six seasons in the SEC at Ole Miss and Mississippi State and was pigeon-holed as a black assistant coach.

When D.J. Durkin left for Texas A&M, Buckley knew he had to change if he wanted to advance his coaching career.

Buckley said there were a lot of Black coaches in that situation, where they weren't going to get the chance. Black guys still coaching in college can't speak freely about it because they have families and don't want to burn bridges. People think it's worse than it really is.

A younger white coach with less experience is what ends up happening with a lot of Black coaches, because they throw some extra money at you, give you some title like assistant head coach that doesn't really mean anything and say, 'We're going to pay you,' but then

Buckley announced on January 21 that he and Ole Miss had agreed to part ways and that it was especially frustrating that he didn't get a chance to be the defensive line coach.

Buckley thinks that Black coaches are not looked at the same.

It's equally important for coaches to develop their assistants as it is for them to develop players.

It doesn't have to be the quarterback who has the brilliant offensive mind.

Croom pointed out that the head coach at the time of his promotion was a receiver coach.

Croom pointed out that Virginia's new head coach did the same thing when he was a running backs coach. "Dabo saw that this guy has a chance to be a head coach, and he elevated him to that position after seeing his work." The SEC needs more of that.

He wants to see more opportunities for black coaches early in their careers.

"We have got to get more people involved early on, like I have a lot of graduate assistants, analysts and interns," he said. "We have to make sure we have a significant amount of minority representation, and the reason for that is to develop those guys so they can move up the ranks and be a head coach someday."

The mission of exposing the best people available has to be a priority for everyone in the profession.

"You're at least creating an awareness of who the best minority coaches are as they develop in their careers, regardless of whether it's the best person to be a coordinators or the best person to be a defensive backs coach," he said.

Mark Stoops, the SEC's longest-tenured head coach, said it's every head coach's responsibility to empower minority coaches. Vince Marrow has been with Stoops at Kentucky for the entire time he has been there.

Stoops said thatVince has been a huge part of the program. He speaks to the team when I am not here. We need to give more opportunities to minorities like Vince in leadership roles.

He talked about his playing and coaching days at Alabama. Croom was an All-SEC center on the Tide's 1973 national championship team and later coached under Bryant at Alabama.

John Mitchell and I were picked to coach. Croom said that the reality of it was that. We weren't planning on doing that." He came to us and told us to give it a try.

Mitchell was the first black football player to play at Alabama. He was Alabama's first black assistant coach and the SEC's first black defensive coordinators when he was at LSU.

Croom thinks Alabama would have been the first SEC school to hire a Black head coach if Bryant had been there.

Mike Shula was the winner of the Alabama head position. Prior to the 2003 season, Croom was the Green Bay Packers' running backs coach and had worked under Bobby Ross as the San DiegoChargers' offensive coordinator.

Croom would have been the head coach at Alabama if Bryant had lived long enough. If Alabama had hired a Black coach, it would have opened the door for other schools in the SEC to do the same.

That goes to the other key point. Getting a job is not the only thing that matters. Black coaches can thrive in jobs where they can. Of the five Black head coaches in the SEC, two were at Commodores, one at Kentucky, and one at Mississippi State.

There aren't a lot of black guys getting jobs at resource schools, where they have the resources to win at the highest level. Even though it wasn't the SEC, I was happy to see Mel Tucker get the contract he got at Michigan State. Both of those things were big.

Tucker led the Spartans to 11 victories a year ago. He is one of the highest paid college football coaches with a 10-year contract.

Many people have stopped me and thanked me, and many minority coaches have also thanked me. Tucker said thanks for hanging in there and showing the way.

Tucker was one of three candidates for the Tennessee job that eventually went to Jeremy Pruitt.

Tucker said he thought he had the job at the time. My friend tells me that I should thank God for unanswered prayers.

The majority of people involved in hiring head football coaches are white, according to Croom.

Croom said there was no question that played into it. Sometimes when a black coach gets a top job, like Charlie Strong at Texas, there is someone putting him on notice.

After Strong was hired at Texas, billionaire Texas donor and former Minnesota Vikings owner Red McCombs said on a San Antonio radio show that Strong would make a good position coach. He apologized to Strong. He went 16-21 in three seasons at Texas. Before he took the Texas job, he was 23-3 in his final two seasons at Louisville.

You don't have a chance when that happens. Croom didn't care what you did. It's difficult to turn down Texas, but when you walk in, you're dead.

The first African American woman to lead an SEC athletic department is from Commodores. When she was looking for a head football coach, she considered a number of candidates, including one who was white.

Lee is very clear about the fact that he hired the right person. I am clear about my commitment to having a diverse pool. I picked the best one.

It's not that all coaches should look the same. That isn't a measure of success. A metric of success is that deserving people have an opportunity to compete for jobs, and the deserving people are more diverse than you might think.

People say the right things when asked about the lack of diversity in college football.

There is more that needs to be done for Croom.

Croom said it was disappointing that they were still talking about it. Not much progress has been made. We should stop talking about it and do something about it.

Something is being done about it.

The National Coalition of Minority Football Coaches was founded by him. The goal of the group is to prepare, promote and produce minority coaches. The "coalition academy" is a mentorship program that pairs influential athletic directors with minority coaches. Two members of last year's inaugural class got head-coaching jobs this year, one at Notre Dame and the other at Virginia

Some of the biggest and most prominent names in football are included in the NCMFC board.

"Look at our board, and you can see that it takes all of us," Locksley said. It has to be more than just a minority issue where we are the only ones fighting.

The hires are made by individual schools. The SEC adopted a bylaw last summer that requires schools to consider people from underrepresented groups when hiring for leadership positions in their athletic departments.

It doesn't require the finalist to be a good one. It doesn't require hiring. Sankey said that the conference can't do that.

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